Kızıldere Geothermal Power Plant

The Kızıldere Geothermal Power Plant (Turkish: Kızıldere Jeotermal Elektrik Santrali) is a geothermal power plant located at Kızıldere village of Sarayköy district in Denizli Province, southwestern Turkey. The initial power plant with 15 MW installed capacity was expanded in the second phase about 80 MW to 95 MW in total, making the facility Turkey's biggest geothermal power plant. It is planned to expand the power plant in a third and fourth phase.

The power plant began its operation as a prototype system with the installation of a 500 kW turbine generator group in 1974. The facility generated electricity and distributed it to the households of villages in the vicinity for four years free of charge. In 1984, the state-owned company Elektrik Üretim A.Ş. (EÜAŞ) built a power plant with 17.4 MW installed capacity and put it into service. However, the geothermal power plant has produced 10 MW on average since its opening in 1984. In September 2008, Zorlu Energy Inc. (Zorlu Doğal Elektrik Üretim A.Ş.), a subsidiary of Zorlu Holding, acquired the facility from Ankara Doğal Elektrik Üretim ve Ticaret A.Ş. (ADÜAŞ) as part of a privatisation process with seven other hydroelectric power plants across the country. Zorlu Energy Inc. obtained the operating lease right for a runtime of 30 years. The company announced that they increased the actual power capacity from 6 MW to 14 MW in three months, and added that they plan to raise the capacity to 60 MW within three years in the next phase. With the initiative of the governmental Electrical Power Resources Survey and Development Administration (Turkish: Elektrik İşleri Etüt İdaresi, EIE), a research project was started by Zorlu Petrogas Oil &Gas group. After the oil and gas assets were sold to Transatlantic Petroleum, the project was carried out by Zorlu Geothermal Company in cooperation with the Hacettepe University and the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) to increase the electricity production from the geothermal field. For the investment capital of the planned capacity increase, which amounts to US$230 million, the company received a credit from the banks Akbank and Garanti Bank in October 2010 with a backpayment t

Power station data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).